


you or your memory

by AdmirableMonster (Mertiya)



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, Canonical Character Death, Comes Back Wrong, Fall of Gondolin, Gen, Horror, Kinda, Psychological Trauma, Tuor isn't in the fic much but i promise he has a good relationship with Idril, friendship between Idril and Maeglin, non evil Maeglin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27085117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/AdmirableMonster
Summary: Maeglin doesn't come back to Gondolin.  Something wearing his shape does.
Relationships: Idril Celebrindal & Maeglin | Lómion
Comments: 32
Kudos: 75





	you or your memory

**Author's Note:**

> in time for Halloween: here is the really quite horrific way Gondolin COULD have fallen.
> 
> title from the song of the same name by The Mountain Goats
> 
> with thanks to everyone on the discord server who helped brainstorm this - you know who you are.

Everyone thinks of her as the princess of the ice.The little girl who lived when her mother died.Her father’s only remaining reason to live.Idril Celebrindal, lady of Gondolin: the princess of the ice.Idril cannot disagree.She is the ice princess, frozen in time and the minds of her father and his people.She is the ice princess—because no one can see how she changes.

When Maeglin comes to Gondolin, Idril sees what no one else does.The hatred when he watches his father die—that they all see.But only Idril sees the fear in his eyes, and the _relief_.Why would you be relieved when your father dies?She wants to know _why_.So—she asks him.

Maeglin blinks at her, then responds with a twisted smile, “Because he killed my mother?”

That’s—obvious, when Idril thinks about it.It’s just so far outside the realm of her experience that it feels alien.But her father has always loved her mother; her father loves her mother so much that he has never recovered from her death.What if he had pushed her into the ice?Would Idril ever have forgiven him?“I’m sorry,” she says.

“Thank you,” Maeglin replies.

The thing is—they enjoy each other’s company.Maeglin will go hunting with her and not treat her as if she’s glass, while Idril is happy enough to sit with him while he works in the forge, chatting about the political undercurrents of Gondolin.Maeglin treats her words as real and knowledgable.Maeglin treats her as a woman, not a frightened little girl.

When Maeglin starts to withdraw, Idril sees it and follows after.She corners him and demands why he won’t look in her eyes and why he seems to want to avoid her.It cuts her to the quick.It hurts.Her _only friend_ —and when Maeglin confesses he’s in love with her, she’s _relieved_.That’s nothing.It’s only awkwardness, only a minor obstacle.It doesn’t mean he doesn’t respect her anymore.She tells him he’s an idiot, and his face lights up a little—he’s sad, when she doesn’t feel that way about him, but he doesn’t push her.It’s only a little awkward.

When the great battle comes, Idril stands before her father and declares she will protect the city while he rides to his brother’s side.Her father’s eyes slide away, and he says— _no, sweet little one, I will give the regency to Maeglin_.Idril feels the blood rising hot in her cheeks.“I am not your _little one_!” she cries, and Maeglin stands beside her and declares that he will not take the regency from her.It is a long, hard fight, but in the end, Maeglin rides with Turgon.Idril takes the regency of Gondolin, and a bitter time it is, with no one listening to her, and all her orders overturned as soon as she leaves the room.Idril weeps angry tears into her pillow at night and in her secret heart rages against her mother for dying.It makes her guilty to think such things, but not guilty enough to stop thinking them.

Turgon returns from the Battle of Unnumbered Tears even more broken and suspicious than before.Idril is like a ghost to him, or a caged songbird.He sees her form, but he does not see _her_.The battle has changed Maeglin, as well, brought up old, hard memories.He and Idril start to slip away from Gondolin, just to see the open sky.Sometimes Maeglin goes to collect metals for his forge.And one day, he does not come back.

The thing that comes back wears Maeglin’s skin.It moves like Maeglin.It talks enough like Maeglin to fool Turgon and the rest of the city.Its words are Maeglin’s words, dripping from Maeglin’s tongue—but its mind is not Maeglin’s mind.Something ancient and evil and _other_ glints behind his dark eyes now, and that small smile of Maeglin’s that used to mean he was happy now sits wrong, like a gash across a paper mask.

She tells Turgon.He does not believe her.She tries to tell others.No one believes her.One day the thing that is not Maeglin corners her in her room.She has always been stronger than Aredhel’s slim son, but the thing that wears his skin takes her wrist in a grasp of iron and pushes her effortlessly up against the wall, and she cannot break free.Those black eyes gleam like an oil slick and it whispers to her, laughing, “No one will ever believe you, princess.I am Maeglin of Gondolin now.”

“You are a _monster_ ,” she hisses angrily.“What have you done with him?”

”Lómion Aredhelion is dead,” the creature hums happily.“And I have sucked the marrow from his bone and now I wear his skin as my cloak.”It runs Maeglin’s hand across her cheek.“Run to your husband, princess; perhaps he will comfort you, though he will not believe you.And soon it will not matter.”

Idril does not run to Tuor.She is too angry, and she cannot stand the thought of Tuor disbelieving her like everyone else.She does not believe he would, but she finds she cannot bear to take the chance.

Instead, she smashes the lock of Maeglin’s bedroom and tears her way inside, searching for something, anything, that will prove to everyone beyond the shadow of a doubt that the thing that has come back is a creature of darkness and not her old, earnest friend.Her face is wet as she rifles through his belongings, but there must be _something_.

She’s not being careful, not at all, and when she pulls out Maeglin’s old sword, the blade catches on the palm of her hand and slices it open.Blood spills across the metal, and Maeglin’s own dear voice says weakly, “Idril?”

Idril gasps and sobs and takes the sword from Maeglin’s rooms to her own.She locks herself inside.“Maeglin?” she whispers.“What have they done to you?”

“I don’t…know,” Maeglin says.He sounds weary to death and distant.“I was taken outside the walls.I was taken to Angband.They hurt me for a long time.I went to sleep with the smell of amaranth in the air and when I woke everything was cold and sharp and you were there.”

They speak in soft whispers, trying to comfort one another.Both of them knowing they are powerless.“You must tell Tuor,” Maeglin says thickly.“He is the only one who might be able to get Turgon to listen.”

“Yes,” Idril agrees faintly.She ought to be able to trust her own husband.She _ought_.But first—she goes to find Eärendil in his nursery, the sword that speaks in Maeglin’s voice strapped to her back.

Eärendil is gone.In his crib there lies a note in Maeglin’s own neat, precise handwriting, _Too late, Ice Princess_.As Idril stares, the breath freezing in her lungs—screams and the sounds of battle rise from the city around her.

There is no time to grieve.Idril slashes her long skirts, ties back her long hair, and heads into the city to find her baby.

In the streets, all is chaos.There are Orcs attacking, and fouler creatures than Orcs.Idril is glad of the snatched moments spent sparring with Maeglin now.She runs one of the Orcs through and blocks a second strike.

“Up on the walls,” Maeglin tells her suddenly.“I can feel him.Near—near the place where _he_ died.”

_Eöl._ Whose reach has never ceased touching Maeglin since his death.Of course that _thing_ has gone to the place where Eöl was thrown from the city walls.Idril grits her teeth and runs pell mell through the streets.She kills or injures two more dark creatures and scrambling up the walls, she hears Tuor’s voice calling for her.

“Idril!Idril!”

She cannot stop, but she calls back to him, “Something has taken Eärendil!” and she runs.

The breath is rough in her lungs by the time she sees Maeglin’s figure with Eärendil’s little body held tight in his arms.By the cliff-side he stands, grinning a wide and toothy grin, the skin of his cheeks ill-fitting against the bones beneath.“So you found me, Princess.”Eärendil is sobbing and striking not-Maeglin’s chest with his little fists.Eärendil, who always loved his awkward Uncle Maeglin.So he knows, too, somehow.

“Give me back my _son_ ,” snarls Idril, hefting the sword with Maeglin’s voice in her hand.

“Or what?Thou wilt fight your oldest friend?” taunts the creature.

“I would walk through Angband itself for my child!And _you_ are _not_ Maeglin!”

“Come, then,” the thing says, shifting its weight lightly.It tucks Eärendil beneath one arm and lifts its sword with the other.

It’s foolish to attack when the thing still has her baby, but Idril can see no other course.Keep it off balance.Keep it on the defensive.Maeglin sings in her hand; the two of them are more than a match for this thing’s sluggish reflexes.Two or three exchanges of sword blows are more than enough to pin it back against the rocks behind it, where the cliff meets the wall.Idril levels her sword.“Give me back my child or I will kill you,” she says.

The smile widens.The black eyes of her friend do not blink.It holds Eärendil safely to the side.“Kill me then,” it breathes.

The adrenaline screams through Idril, and she thrusts, strong and sure and sharp.The blade goes directly through the thing’s chest—Maeglin’s chest—and it staggers.It coughs.Blood trickles from its mouth.The black eyes blink and clear, and the lines of Maeglin’s face fall into place.

“Oh,” he says, and it is not the thing’s voice.“Idril.That—was a good blow.”

The breath catches in Idril’s throat.Maeglin staggers forward, smiling slightly, holding Eärendil as carefully as if he were made of glass.“Here,” he says.Idril takes her little boy and cradles him to her chest. 

“Maeglin,” she says.“Maeglin, we must—“

Those black eyes are clear and sad.“I suppose my father was right,” he sighs, and his legs fold, and as Tuor makes it to the top of the wall—Maeglin falls.

Maeglin falls the traitor of Gondolin, and Idril’s fingers and Idril’s words will never be enough to catch him, for who would listen to the little girl whose mother died on the Helcaraxë?


End file.
